Author: Andrea

September 16, 2014 /

The folks at New Pop Lit added an interview with me as an afterword, if you will, to my short story about indy wrestling, “The Unshakable Kayfabe of Tommy Rage”. An interview with little old me! If you’re interested in wrestling, Russian literature, MFA programs and cowboys neglected by history, take a look.    

September 14, 2014 /

A couple days ago somebody looked at my post about John Cena and Paul Heyman after having performed the following Google search: “will pual hymen bring john cena thug in 2014” A drunk and possibly high wrestling fan was contemplating the John Cena problem and Google offered me as relevant source material. I’m not being silly when I say this: I couldn’t be more proud. This is exactly why I write the things I do.…

September 10, 2014 /

Honestly, I avoided much of RAW on Monday. I was in the kitchen doing dishes and listening but not watching, in hopes of not having to see the Jerry Springer thing. I had thought surely as a species we had evolved beyond Jerry Springer. (I mean, what is this, 1999?) But I got drawn over to the TV during a few of the segments, one of which, of course, was John Cena’s powerful confrontation of…

August 30, 2014 /

I’m struggling to read wrestling these past couple weeks. Sure, one week I was out in the sticks without even a viable internet connection, so that threw me off my rhythm. But the more pressing problem is the shite state of affairs in the current threads of WWE’s narrative. I’ve been listening to some podcasts. It’s not just me. I’m feeling stagnant, and the smarks are getting ticked off. We’re all starting to balk about…

August 28, 2014 /

VICE has an interview with Werner Herzog entitled “Werner Herzog Has a Lot of Time For WrestleMania”, in which the luminary German documentary filmmaker cops to being a wrestling fan: I take it you don’t consume much pop culture? Not very much, no. Well, I look with great interest at phenomena like WrestleMania. Or I used to watch the Anna Nicole Smith Show because there was a very strange cultural shift there. I go to…

August 26, 2014 /

I have never had even the tiniest shred of interest in Mark Henry until he came out and lectured Rusev about disrespect and all that. In particular, I thought this was a brilliant line: “Listen up, boy…” And then, to Lana, “…and maybe you can translate what ‘boy’ mean to me.” It was such a profound idea I almost wondered if I heard him correctly. And I started to ponder how, if I were Lana,…

August 24, 2014 /

I’m back, frazzled by the trappings of civilization, and stunned by the brutality of Summer Slam. I thought surely Cena would at least put up a fight! So, where do we go from here? Who will find Brock Lesnar’s Achilles heel? Somebody has to, don’t they? Otherwise things will get boring pretty quick. A villain who cannot be stopped pretty much kills a story. I still need to catch up on this week’s Raw and…

August 13, 2014 /

Dear Friends of this Blog, I figure there are about 3-5 of you — so good to see your hits here and there! Thank you for reading my thoughts and for reading wrestling with me! I regret to report that I will be away from the internet this weekend and all next week. Such unfortunate timing! I will miss Summer Slam, and by the time I’m back online and caught up with all the action…

August 12, 2014 /

What are the implications of Cena making his match with Lesnar about defending the entire history of professional wrestling? Is that not a tall order for tween Cena? Donning Hulk’s colors and all? Is perhaps Hulkamania truly immortal? Is he in fact a god to us? Hulk may be the most unique character in wrestling history. Discuss. Brock Lesnar is a scary motherfucker. Discuss. What Shakespeare play will Cena’s battle with Brock Lesnar be? Will…

August 11, 2014 /

Another stunning conflict to emergence from the diva pool stocked mostly with fun but shallow hotties is Brie Bella and her rather archetypal confrontation with Stephanie. We don’t often see women arising to epic in the literary sense, but here we have David’s young wife taking on the unsurmountable Mrs. Goliath. The calf butting the oak tree, in Solzhenitsyn’s terms. Brie is now being cast as an upstart heroine and a rebel dissident. She is…